A subject that I don't know a lot about is onboard communication
systems, but I understand that the cabling to run a wifi antenna on the
masthead is fairly pricey, and I was wondering if a 12 volt repeater is
available that would be a more cost effective solution (not to mention
one less wire up the mast)?
Jim

wrote:
A subject that I don't know a lot about is onboard communication
systems, but I understand that the cabling to run a wifi antenna on
the masthead is fairly pricey, and I was wondering if a 12 volt
repeater is available that would be a more cost effective solution
(not to mention one less wire up the mast)?
Jim

If it needed cabling it would be wi-fi, would it?

The cabling is just to get the antenna up the mast for the height
advantage. But rather than a cable run, I wanted to broadcast/receive
wifi from a repeater at the masthead.. I found a repeater that would do
the job but it is rediculously pricey. In the meantime I found
another possible solution, and that is to have a USB wifi dongle at the
top of the mast. The mast is 15 meters high and an active cable (very
cheap) will connect the dongle to the PC. Now I just need to find an
antenna the will be happy at the top of the mast, be omni-directional,
and work with the USB wifi dongle....
Jim

Jonas Lonnroth wrote:
wrote:
In the meantime I found
another possible solution, and that is to have a USB wifi dongle at the
top of the mast. The mast is 15 meters high and an active cable (very
cheap) will connect the dongle to the PC. Now I just need to find an
antenna the will be happy at the top of the mast, be omni-directional,
and work with the USB wifi dongle....

Isn't there a maximum length (five meters) for direct USB connections or is
that only for printers?

You're correct. My guess is that "active extenders" are 5m ( = 16 ft)
cables with a USB hub built in. Longer ones are not according to
specification (even though they might work (most of the time)).

So for a 15 meter mast you'd need four ... Not a viable option. Running
a powered ethernet cable with the smallest access point you can find
would be a better solution, but those AP's are still pretty big.

Kees

Kees Verruijt wrote in
:

So for a 15 meter mast you'd need four ... Not a viable option. Running
a powered ethernet cable with the smallest access point you can find
would be a better solution, but those AP's are still pretty big.

Kees


His LAN port is Ethernet, not USB. Ethernet will go a LONG way without
repeating. There's one buried in my lawn to my neighbor's house. It's
over 400' and works great at 100 Mbps to my Netgear RP114 router.

--
Larry